Why, an Autobiography

hiking trails on the west coast: Begin climbing on a soft earthen trail through beautiful douglas fir-western hemlock forest for 2.5 miles along a series of switchbacks, then break from the tree cover for 1 mile of straight even trail through a stunning wildflower meadow just below the ridgeline, after which the trail makes a sharp right and continues to the summit with a further 2 miles of switchbacks. Enjoy beautiful views of the nearest dormant stratovolcano and also at least two waterfalls and a crystal-clear alpine lake along the way. Round trip: 11 miles, 3,000ft elevation gain. Difficulty: moderate :)

hiking trails on the east coast: Go 1.5 miles up. Yes, straight up. Switchbacks? What are you, a baby? Are you a little child? Fuck you. Go up. [Seasonal note: first half of trail is a running stream during mud season and a multipitch ice climbing route during winter.] Round trip: 3 miles, 1,200ft elevation gain. Difficulty: jesus christ

I am starting to. Understand. why some people have such an apparently unhinged viewpoint of how many miles a hike is. I read folks talking about 8-12 mile hikes and I was legitimately like "How the hell do you even FIND people physically fit enough to do that with you? How do y'all have the time to train for that?"

But apparently y'all have been normal the whole time and some places have a version of hiking that is more like walking, and doesn't have any crawling on all fours or climbing over boulders or 45 degree inclines or partially broken ladders. Appalachia just wants to Harm You.

In my opinions, it's not the net elevation gain that gets you, it's the number of times the trail descends downwards and then goes up again to regain the elevation.

I always remember the Appalachian trail fondly.

“America IS walkable, you’re all just lazy” my childhood home was an hour from the nearest hospital (by car)

not all Americans are lazy suburbanites, some of us genuinely have to drive miles and miles and hours and hours to buy clothes, grocery shop, see doctors or do anything, really.

notice how in movies they show you New York and costal SoCal and not like, middle of nowhere North Dakota.

“take public transit” look at me, look me in the eye. do you think they have subways in towns with three digit populations? do you think they run busses out to the middle of nowhere?

America is walkable!

If you have a spare six months to walk it, of course.

It took me a day under six months to walk the eastern coast of America, and while this might be an exaggeration to what some people say about America being “walkable” it took me through the exact kinds of towns that OP talks about.

Towns with populations in the double digits that survive off of hunting, gardening, and a single dollar general three towns over. Towns that don’t make enough money to repair the roads, let alone have a transit system. Towns that aren’t populated in the winter, because it’s too hard to get food or healthcare there. I saw the complete desolation of the American countryside, towns that had been abandoned in the 1950’s, rotting factories and storefronts that hold no jobs or supplies.

On those old mountain roads we’d sometimes cross, there was a 75% chance it was once a forestry road that hadn’t seen a vehicle in over thirty years. You think the people who drive those gravel dirt pits to go to Walmart once every two months have access to a metro?

American cities can be converted into walkable ones, if we focus on it. Places like Amsterdam are a good example of changed infrastructure from a vehicle centric 1970’s to a bike friendly today. YouTube channel Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns go into more detail about it, and I would highly recommend them, and highly recommend locals in cities to get into things like public transport, bikes, and local politics.

But rural America is a beast that will not be tamed, and anybody who says they can fix the nothingness of it is very, very wrong.

The flip side of “cleanse diets don’t do anything” is that if you tried a cleanse diet and you did experience a notable reduction in fatigue, joint pain, and general blarginess, you need to talk to an allergy specialist, because there’s nearly a 100% chance that means you have an undiagnosed allergy to some component of your customary diet.

This is an excellent point and I’d imagine there’s a lot of quack diets that continue circulating and getting press based on this exact principle.

Absolutely – a great many diets of the “stop eating everything except these three foods” variety are 100% trading on the fact that they’re practically guaranteed to generate some positive testimonials by virtue of coincidentally cutting somebody’s undiagnosed food allergy out of their diet.

Me, with wheat and wheat by products. Went gluten free as a joke from Reddit, turns out I had celiac the whole time. Who would have thought?

tim drake 🤝 seto kaiba

teenage ceos with lil brothers

@jube514 oh my god

YEAHHHHHHHHH. IM UNWELL. IM ILL. YES. YES. HALLOWEEN COSTUME OF THE CENTURY. AU OF THE CENTURY. SOMEBODY DRAW MOKUBA AND KAIBA IN ROBIN OUTFITS!

A fun tip about me, if you’re purposely obtuse in my fic comments I’m not above going “okay” and deleting the fic

A fun tip about me, if you have a problem with something I say, I’m happy to talk about it like adults. But if I share my experience with something rather serious because you’re fanfic reminded me of that, and you have a problem with that, delete my comment. Don’t talk down to me. And don’t act like it’s not a reasonable connection to make if you choose to argue with me.

And also, if you delete your fanfic to spite me? I’m going to find your tumblr instead.

It’s a damn shame too, I actually really enjoyed some of your other works

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I know nothing about you, and after this I’m going to assume we’re mutually blocking each other and calling it a day.

I don’t ask for constructive criticism on my work. I’m sorry that you found yourself in the words that I’ve made. I tried to respond to a comment on my fic with a joke, lighthearted, saying that my work wasn’t specific to anything. It’s comic logic. It’s fic logic. It was more focused on other things.

I ask people not to think to heavy on it for a reason.

But this? This is creepy. This is weird. I don’t want you to do this. This makes me feel like I’ve done something awfully wrong simply by writing Batman fanfiction.

So when this happens, I stop creating things.

It’s my work. I can take it on or off a free fic reading site if I want to.

I’m blocking you after this, I don’t care what you think about that, or how you’re going to be upset about my works or my other fics.